Middleton shoppers sign up nurses not nukes

Pat Sanchez encourages a passing shopper to sign the petition in Middleton

Campaigners from Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group received a warm welcome in Middleton on Saturday 27 January when they set-up their ‘No Trident Replacement’ stall outside the Shopping Centre.

Many Middleton shoppers were quick to sign the group’s petition calling on local MP Jim Dobbin to support them in demanding that the government:

1. Immediately begin work to decommission the Trident nuclear weapons system.
2. Halts all plans to replace ‘Trident’ with any other nuclear weapons system.
3. Uses all monies thus saved to improve the country’s health and social care services.

The group also urged people to join the national demonstration being organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Stop the War Coalition for Saturday 24 February.

On behalf of the group, Philip Gilligan said: “It is very clear that people in Middleton, like the vast majority of people up and down the country, want their taxes to be spent on saving and improving lives, not on destroying them. They recognise that Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s plans to squander tens of billions  on developing and building ever more dangerous nuclear weapons of mass destruction, at the same time as they are closing local Accident and Emergency departments and Maternity Units is morally indefensible.

“Anyone who wants to join us in telling the government even more clearly that we want ‘No Trident Replacement’, ‘Troops Out of Iraq’ and ‘Nurses Not Nukes’ should phone 01706 370117 or 07815 144460 for information about coaches to and from the demonstration in London on 24 February or to see how else they can get involved in local peace campaigning.”